


Itsy Bisty

by katalizi



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4623294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katalizi/pseuds/katalizi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Philinda Bad Days. Prompt - Melinda faces a childhood fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Itsy Bisty

Melinda May’s breath came hard and fast, sucked in past clenched teeth. Her heart was up in her throat, choking her, sweat prickled uncomfortably between her shoulder blades and for a split second she was sure her vision went blurry as if she were on the verge of fainting. From far away she could hear a voice calling her name.

_“Agent May! May!”_

She trembled as she looked down at the massive control board, a twisted piece of eighties technology that had been left to rust in some far off abandoned prison in the wilds of Suriname, South America. A prison that wasn’t quiet as abandoned as previously thought, and now S.H.I.E.L.D. were there to round up a guerrilla group had occupied the base.

_“May? Look, I don’t want to rush you or anything but … well, there’s an awful lot of very big, very angry looking men coming my way and I would really like some heavy doors between us soon.”_

What had originally started as a two person reconnaissance mission had quickly devolved into a smash and grab operation when she and Coulson had discovered that the group had a small child with them. A child that they had recognised as the Vice-President’s son. (Which had also gone a way to explain why local government was being more than a little unhelpful at the moment.) She and Coulson had quickly agreed that leaving the boy in the clutches of those people was unacceptable and had devised a plan where Coulson would sneak inside, grab the boy, and meet May back at their Jeep for a quick getaway. Unfortunately, things just couldn’t be easy.

_“May! Ten more seconds and it won’t matter if the door’s closed or not! May!”_

When she’d heard his cries for help she’d immediately stormed the base, heading straight for the control room where she swiftly dispatched the guard and had been ready to take over the prison’s controls, where she intended to lock the guerrilla fighters in one section while providing a safe exit for Coulson and the boy through another.

Problem was, the guard wasn’t the only thing standing between her and the console.

Sitting between the control was a massive, ugly, hairy spider. A spider that was as big as her hand, maybe even a little bit bigger. The creature was unnaturally still but May knew it was alive. It was watching her, multiple, swollen bead shinning in an alien face. May had knocked the guard unconscious, no problem, but the moment she saw the spider she had frozen. And had stayed frozen while Coulson had become steadily more alarmed at her lack of response that now rose to one last cry.

_“Melinda!”_

Terror washed through Melinda but without thinking about it she leapt forward and slammed down on the buttons … before quickly leaping back with a shriek as the spider scuttled with incredible speed across the counter and disappeared down the side. And if there was one thing Melinda hated more than being in a room with a spider she could see, it was being in a room with a spider she couldn’t see. Moving with the same speed as the awful creature she darted out the door and sped towards the exit, shivers of disgust running up and down her spine as she did. After managing to swallow the bile at the back of her throat she contacted Phil.

“Coulson? Are you out?”

 _“Yes, barely,”_ he said with a trace of annoyance, something she couldn’t blame him for. He and the kid had nearly been cut into threads by a very angry mob all because she couldn’t handle one little arachnid.

 _Not little, HUGE! Freaking HUGE!_ a voice inside her screamed. She had seen some messed up things as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent but nothing quite like that spider had ever got under her skin so thoroughly.

Aloud she said, “Meet you at the Jeep in three.”

_“What happened?”_

“Jeep. Three minutes.”

Melinda herself was back at the Jeep in two and a half minutes, so Phil was more than a little surprised to see her in the passenger seat. He didn’t question it, however, as his attention was more focused on the small boy who was currently clutching at his hand as if it were a lifeline. Phil quickly hoisted the kid into the backseat.

“There you are Andwele,” he said in the same comforting tone that every single adult in the world uses with children when things are particularly bad. “You just sit tight there, buddy, we’ll get you out of here.”

He slide into the front seat and gave Melinda a sidelong look, one she didn’t return, and then they were off, hurdling down an overgrown jungle track just as a volley of bullets were sprayed ineffectually at their retreating backs.

“Well, I think we’ve lost our element of surprise,” said Phil dryly. Still Melinda said nothing. Phil could only bare the silence for less than a minute before he spoke again. “So … are you going to tell me what happened back there? More guards than expected? Faulty wiring? Took a wrong turn?” Still nothing. Then, in a more serious tone, “Look, I can see something’s bothering you, Melinda. What is it? You … you know you can tell me, right?”

Phil sounded so uncertain that Melinda felt her shoulders drop slightly as some of the tension was leached out, and she finally turned to face him. “You’ll just laugh.”

“I will not,” he said with a straight face. “Everyone knows I have no sense of humour.” Melinda blew out a sigh and pressed herself into her seat, her glanced flickering to the rearview mirror where she could see the little boy - Andwele - sitting in the back seat, eyes wide as he watched the two strangers talking. “Don’t worry about Andwele,” said Phil. “I … uh … I’m not even sure he speaks english.”

Still, it was only with eyes squeezed shut that Melinda was able to admit what had scared her. “There was a spider.”

With her eyes closed she couldn’t really know what Phil’s reaction to this was, but the fact he didn’t say anything straight away more or less confirmed that he was fighting a grin. When she snapped her eyes open to glare at him, however, his face was carefully neutral.

“Oh?” he said. “Was it … big?”

“Huge,” said Melinda flatly, angrily. Angry at being made light of, angry at being scared in the first place.

“Could’ve been a Goliath Birdeating Spider,” said Phil conversationally and Melinda felt another wave of sickness, although she wasn’t sure if it was the word ‘goliath’ or ‘birdeating’ that irked her the most. “They’re the biggest spider in the world, although their venom isn’t anything too bad. Kind of like a wasp’s sting. Now the Sydney Funnel-Web, that’s a dangerous little bug and did you know its fangs can bite through fingernails —?”

“Please stop,” said Melinda, her hands gripping her knees so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Unexpected, unwanted, she could feel stinging tears gathering at the corner of her eyes and she desperately blinked them back. Phil looked away from the road for a moment with a half grin, but when he saw just how upset Melinda was all his jokes became cruel jabs and his smile quickly slide from his face.

“Oh God, Melinda,” he said quickly, looking as though he wanted to reach out but didn’t think he should. “I am so, so sorry, I didn’t —”

“When I was ten,” she started, keeping her eyes forward. “I went on a camping trip with my school. There was a girl — Anna — who hated me. One night I woke up to find …” She faltered for a moment before continuing. “ … to find that she had put a spider’s egg sac at the bottom of my sleeping bag, and that they had hatched through the night. I woke up … _covered_ in tiny little spiders. They were everywhere and I … I couldn’t even get out of my damn sleeping bag. And … I just can’t deal with spiders. I just can’t.” He voice hardened. “So I’m sorry if I was a little late with my rescue back there.”

Silence. And then, in a soft, sincere tone, “I’m sorry, Melinda. I really am.” At this he finally reached out and grasped at her hand, just for a moment before going back to the steering wheel. “But I do have to ask … what happened to Anna?”

Though her eyes were still bright a mischievous smile managed to sneak its way onto her face. “Well, lets just say that while spiders might be bad, live tadpoles in your water bottle is just so much worse.”

“Ewww!” came the disgusted cry from behind them, and they both whipped around to see Andwele wrinkle his nose with distaste. “That’s gross!”

“Well, I guess he speaks english,” muttered Phil.

“I like spiders,” Andwele offered to Melinda.

“That’s cool, as long as you keep them away from me,” said Melinda. Phil smiled at the two of them.

“Okay. Did you know they’ve discovered thirteen new spiders in Australia?”

“I did not,” she said, and then aside to Phil, “Never take me to Australia.”

“Not unless we’re desperate.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Phryne Fisher's arachnophobia (from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries). Although for an aussie there's no such thing as a fear of spiders, just a natural, logical wariness.
> 
> All spider facts true.


End file.
